Of Bumps and Jumps and Things They Don't Tell You

Holy Santa Claus shirt, Batman!!!

Beth has popped.

See? Told ya. Her baby bump is no longer a meager paunch, it is a full-blown bump. We're both grateful because before it was hard for outsiders to tell if she was actually pregnant or just gaining weight. Now there's no argument. At least, no argument among those more observant than a dead sea cucumber.

In the midst of this bump, there've been some jumps. And some kicks. Oh, have there been kicks. Sometimes they come about as a response to my voice, which is kinda cool. I speak, and my daughter roundhouse kicks my wife's uterus. Goal achieved. Even without my help, Penelope is seeking to establish a reputation as an amazing pre-natal soccer star. And Beth probably has internal hemorrhaging from said kicks. The "guilt trip your child" list grows ever longer in Beth's favor. And these things are to be expected.

What I didn't expect were all of MY changes. And I don't just mean gaining ten pounds. Let me see if I can illustrate...

I've never been one to cry or get emotional. I mean, like anyone, there are times when I would be touched, especially by emotive music or spiritual things. But today I realized that I've been getting choked up quite a bit over the past few weeks. Over silly, trivial things.

I choked up thinking about taking my daughter to Disneyland. I choked thinking about her first Hallowe'en, or her first Christmas when she knows about and believes in Santa Claus. I choked up hearing the Star Wars theme and a Jason Mraz song I associate with Penelope now ("I Won't Give Up"). And I got choked up when I saw a little girl and her daddy at the Fiesta Olive Garden. I even wanted to use the word "cute" to describe her, all wrapped up in pink and frill. She was so tiny and cute. I felt like a estrogen-laden, tree-hugging sap. And that's putting it fairly mildly.

As it turns out, what they don't tell you about pregnancy could fill a few dozen books. One of these hidden facts is that when you are a guy living with a pregnant woman, you start to... change... Hormones and chemicals re-align. Your body starts pumping stuff it really shouldn't, estrogen being a case in point. These chemicals and hormones serve to forcefully calm down the macho manly man within said guy, and make him into a blubbering mess. It's possibly a process to help the man acclimate to being nurturing to an infant, rather than trying to play four-square with it.

Not, in fact, a sport involving newborns.

So now the slightest thing can choke me up. The Disney castle sequence before films. The Indiana Jones theme. Seeing a toddler babbling and hopping through a restaurant. Things that make me realize that I'm becoming a father, and that not only do I get to raise a child now...

I get to be a kid myself again.

... except, with more crying involved.